Alexander Christie

Who was Alexander Christie?

Alexander Christie was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of Vancouver Island and Archbishop of Oregon City.

Christie was born in the Vermont town of Highgate and later moved with his family to Wisconsin and, after the 1865 end of the Civil War, to the Minnesota city of Austin. He studied at the Grand Seminary of Montreal from 1874 to 1877, and was ordained a priest on December 2, 1877. He served as pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Waseca from 1878 until 1890, when he was transferred to the new Church of the Ascension in Minneapolis. From 1894 to 1898, he was pastor of St. Stephen's Church in Minneapolis.

On March 26, 1898, Christie was appointed Bishop of Vancouver Island in British Columbia by Pope Leo XIII. He received his episcopal consecration on the following June 29 from Archbishop John Ireland, with Bishop Jean-Baptiste Brondel and John Shanley serving as co-consecrators. Christie was later named Archbishop of Oregon City on March 4, 1899.

Bishop Christie founded the University of Portland in 1901 and the Catholic Truth Society in 1922, and successfully campaigned against an Oregon law that would eliminate parochial schools, which was eventually settled by the Supreme Court in Pierce v. Society of Sisters.